Utilizing a small weather ballon as a location signal

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Bushman5

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Oct 31, 2007
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several days ago i got to play with a helium heavy duty rubber ballon (promo for a truck dealership). It was about 2' wide, neon orange, with a tether of hi- viz pink/orange braided cord, with relfective mylar and pink, orange , yellow flagging tape tied every foot.

It was HIGHLY visible, from several miles away, and you could easily see where it was tethered to, due to the hi viz tether cord and streamers.

this would be ideal for a truck or plane in the wilderness, to allow searchers (air, land) to easily pinpoint your general location quickly, and to pinpoint your exact location once they neared the area. Send it up abot 100 - 300 feet. (to clear trees and tall cliffs

I'm looking into building a kit (inside a Pelican case of course!) with a small helium filler bottle, hi viz balloon imprinted with SOS, hi viz tether and flagging tape streamers. One could also have several universal distress flags to attach to the balloon

in the meantime here are some stock photos of what i mean:

yellow.jpg


7ft.redballwithpennants.jpg
 
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Sounds complicated and heavy. Maybe if you carry it in a plane, boat or vehicle it would be less of a burden on you.
 
that was the idea. Although the unit i i tried at the dealership was less than a 1lb with the little filler bottle they had.
 
I believe this idea was used sometime in the past with a Hydrogen generator. (zinc or magnesium plus acid) Maybe in WWII.
 
Just fleshing out zman's post a bit. I looked it up recently for a similar idea myself, that's why I remembered it.

Seems like a sound idea, especially if the tether incorporated an (HF?) antenna wire....

Maybe a strobe as well ?

Anyone know how big it would need to be to reflect radar ?
 
one could add mylar flags wigh from what i understand reflect radar.

a strobe!!!! excellent idea!! newer ones are very light too. one could also clip on a FENIX P1D set on SOS strobe mode with the white wand attachment.......
 
At first glance this seemed like a huge stretch to me, but I just have been looking around a bit. Some small helium tanks might be worth the cost and weight to use in such an emergency. To me, if it was only a 72-hr scenario, the extra few pounds wouldn't bother me since I would be staying mostly put anyway. As far adding a strobe to it, that wouldn't be too bad, but probably unecessary since you have a pretty big balloon flying in the air.

Of course, the downside I see is how delicate mylar can be and how heavy a stronger material would be if I had to carry it around.
 
I had a friend that used to do alot of prospecting in the desert around Calico in Calif. He told me that one time he and a friend parked their Jeep canyon then went looking around and when it came time to go back to the Jeep hadn't a clue what canyon to look in. He told me it several hours to locate the Jeep. After that they would tether a surplus weather balloon to the Jeeps bumper and never had anymore problems.
 
lack of wind could be an issue......it gets pretty still here sometimes......

interesting idea though, could be used off a boat......
 
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